1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a game system and a storage medium having a game program stored thereon, and more particularly to a game system controlled using two controllers and a storage medium having a game program stored thereon.
2. Description of the Background Art
For example, Japanese Laid-Open Patent Publication No. 2004-313492 (hereinafter, referred to as Patent Document 1) discloses a controller having its control units held by both hands of a player, respectively, so as to play a game.
The controller disclosed in Patent Document 1 is composed of an R unit to be held by a right hand of a player and an L unit to be held by a left hand of the player. The R unit and the L unit each has an operation button and a stick on the top surface and the side of a housing thereof. The R unit and the L unit can be physically coupled to each other so as to be used as a combined controller.
However, the controller disclosed in Patent Document 1 is constructed by simply separating a conventional game apparatus controller into right and left units. That is, although a player can place his or her right and left hands anywhere when the player holds the R and L units by his or her right and left hands, respectively, the player cannot control the controller itself with improved flexibility. For example, not only the combined controller but also the game apparatus controller separated into the right and the left units cannot realize a new operation.
Further, in a shooting game played using the controller, a stick is often used to move a shooting target. In this case, a direction in which the stick is to be inclined on the controller is different, in an actual space, from a direction in which the shooting target is to move on a screen, thereby making it difficult to intuitively recognize an operation direction. Accordingly, each player differently recognizes the correspondence between the direction in which the stick is to be inclined and the direction in which the shooting target is to move on the screen. Therefore, a “reverse” mode has to be provided so as to enable each player to set his or her desired direction. Moreover, the respective directions in which two sticks of the combined controller can be moved are coplanar on the controller. Therefore, when a character allowed to move in a depth direction of a virtual game space and a target which moves on a plane in a display area are to be separately controlled, the combined controller is not suitable in that a user cannot easily recognize the directions. Furthermore, since the R unit and the L unit are invariably assigned to a right hand and a left hand, respectively, it is difficult to set an operation based on each player's dominant hand.
Further, in a role playing game and the like, a menu selection is sometimes required during the game. At this time, in the game played using the controller, a selection item changes over one by one by making an input using a direction key and the like, whereby it takes long to perform the menu selection. Therefore, when the game is played in real time, a player cannot control a player character while selecting a selection item from a menu, thereby sometimes failing in the game. Moreover, in order to change the facing direction of the character, an operation section such as a stick must be kept inclined, thereby preventing the facing direction of the character from being quickly changed.